For example ISIS declared that the recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Iran contained “the most comprehensive detail and analysis to date [of] evidence of nuclear weaponization-related activities conducted by Iran.” Nevertheless, it concluded, “Notably absent … is any assessment by the IAEA of Iran’s capability to make a nuclear explosive device based on what it learned through these activities.”

Meanwhile, at Race for Iran, Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett write that in no way does the IAEA report “demonstrate that Iran is ‘developing a nuclear weapon.” Besides, according to Article II of the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), to which Iran is a party, “non-nuclear-weapon state signatories [are not permitted] ‘to manufacture or otherwise acquire’” nuclear weapons. In other words, write the Leveretts:

“The Treaty prohibits the building of actual weapons. It does not prohibit signatories from studying nuclear weapons designs … or even conducting experiments on high-explosives of the sort that could be used in a bomb.”

However, in a paper for the “Nuclear Iran” section of ISIS’s website in November of last year titled Iran Nuclear Issue – Considerations for a Negotiated Outcomet, John Carlson begs to differ. The former Director General of the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office writes: “To ‘manufacture’ cannot be interpreted so narrowly that there is no violation of Article II until a nuclear weapon is fully assembled – this would be an unreasonably rigorous approach that would undermine the practical value of the NPT.” He continues:

“Since the purpose of nuclear hedging [the capability to manufacture nuclear weapons as opposed to their actual possession] is to be in a position to make nuclear weapons, at the very least nuclear hedging is not a “peaceful purpose”, hence is not a purpose permitted by Article IV [the general right to use nuclear energy]. … But it is not clear how far preparations to make nuclear weapons can progress before a state will be regarded as being in violation of Article II.”

How is whether or not “the real purpose of an ostensibly peaceful program is to establish a nuclear weapon capability” determined? Carlson answers.

“The fact that [determining] this might not be straightforward is no justification for accepting hedging as a legitimate activity. A number of indicators can be identified that would help distinguish a peaceful program from one whose purpose is hedging. [Such as] determining whether pursuit of the fuel cycle in question — uranium enrichment or reprocessing — is consistent with the state’s nuclear energy needs.”

Carlson concludes:

“Any outcome to the Iranian situation that proceeds on the basis that hedging is acceptable will be fundamentally flawed — it would mislead Iran about international tolerance levels, and mislead the international community about Iran’s commitment to non-proliferation. No outcome will provide the necessary international confidence if states continue to think the real purpose of Iran’s nuclear program is to establish a break-out capability.”

This disarmament advocate is inclined to agree as long as this argument isn’t used to threaten Iran further. Furthermore, write the ISIS staff (David Albright, Paul Brannan, Andrea Stricker and Andrew Ortendahl) in a January 2012 report titled Reality Check: Shorter and Shorter Timeframe if Iran Decides to Make Nuclear Weapons:

Given Iran’s steady, albeit slow progress, downplaying the threat can end up serving to undermine the development of non-military methods to keep Iran from building nuclear weapons.

“In other words, they support continued sanctions. But, from this disarmament activist’s point of view, what ‘can end up serving to undermine the development of non-military methods to keep Iran from building nuclear weapons’ to an even greater extent is failure by Western nuclear powers to show unconditional disarmament leadership — whether it’s likely to succeed or not. Though states that seek to proliferate may either ignore such substantive steps or even gloat over them, there’s no other recourse for the West if, in the long term, it seeks to stay the hand of proliferators.”

Though it’s the correct course of action, calling for disarmament to prevent proliferation is as counterintuitive as asking states to attempt to solve financial crises by spending instead of cutting in the cause of austerity. A tough sell, in other words.

If you’ll recall, earlier this year, the New START treaty was held hostage by Senate Republicans under the direction of Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ). By way of ransoming it, the Obama administration forked over a proposal to spend $88 billion during the next decade on nuclear-weapon modernization. (As if to show the futility of that approach, while it was ultimately passed, Kyl still didn’t vote in favor of New START.) That figure represents a 20 percent increase above funding levels proposed during the Bush administration.

Equally as sad, as Hans Kristensen wrote at the Federation of American Scientists’ Strategic Security Blog:

“… the treaty does not require destruction of a single nuclear warhead and actually permits the United States and Russia to deploy almost the same number of strategic warheads that were permitted by the 2002 Moscow Treaty [thanks, in part, to a] new counting rule that attributes one weapon to each bomber rather than the actual number of weapons assigned to them. [Even stranger, this] ‘fake’ counting rule frees up a large pool of warhead spaces under the treaty limit that enable each country to deploy many more warheads than would otherwise be the case.

“Indeed, the New START Treaty is not so much a nuclear reductions treaty as it is a verification and confidence building treaty.”

Confidence building is nice and all. But it’s been 62 years since both the United States and the former Soviet Union (and then Russia) have possessed nuclear weapons,  25 years since the pivotal Reykjavík nuclear summit, and 20 years since the end of the Cold War. We’re still just trying to build confidence?

Meanwhile, what does disarmament look like when it’s not just pecking at the inside of its egg struggling to emerge? Regular readers of Focal Points know that we track the progress of the Los Alamos Study Group, a disarmament organization that monitors the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory (the heart of the Manhattan Project during World War II) and is today managed by a Bechtel-led consortium for the National Nuclear Security Administration.

In recent years, the mission of the Los Alamos Study Group (LASG) has been to halt the progress of a Soviet-era-sounding project called the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility (CMRR), intended, in the words of the Los Alamos National Laboratory itself, to perform “analytical chemistry, materials characterization, and metallurgy research and development,” for the production of nuclear pits.

Upon first hearing the phrase, a nuclear pit might sound like a dump for nuclear waste and old warheads. But, as in the pit of a fruit, it’s an origin of life — where the chain reaction occurs in a nuclear warhead. You can be forgiven if you’re surprised that, in light of President Obama’s renowned Prague disarmament speech and New START, however watered down, we’re still creating these obscure objects of destruction. Especially considering that 14,000 pits have been recovered from warheads that have been retired.

Physicist and nuclear policy authority Frank von Hippel recently testified in a lawsuit that the LASG filed against the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

“The need for large-scale pit production has vanished. In 2003, the [NNSA] was arguing that the [United States] needed the capability to produce 125 to 450 pits per year by 2020 to replace the pits in the US weapon stockpile that would be 30 to 40 years old by then. . . . But, in 2006, we learned that US pits were so well made that, according to a Congressionally-mandated review of … pit aging, ‘Most primary types have credible minimum lifetimes in excess of 100 years.’”

Of course, that’s as much bad news — these infernal engines will be around for another century unless they’re dismantled — as good news. Meanwhile, the CMRR project is now expected to cost between $4 and $6 billion. In order to halt or at least stall it, the LASG filed a case against the NNSA seeking a new Environmental Impact Statement (as mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act) to address, among other things, seismic concerns about the project. While that case was dismissed, the LASG is not only appealing it, but filing a second lawsuit toward the same end. In the latest LASG newsletter, Executive Director Greg Mello writes (emphasis added):

“On December 15, House and Senate conferees issued their “megabus” appropriations bill for fiscal year (FY) 2012. [Passed in the Senate and House, though 86 Republicans defied Republican leadership and voted against it. -- RW] … the bill appropriates only 63% of the requested funds for the [CMRR], slashing $100 million (M) from the $270 M proposed spending level in the project. … CMRR and [a project in proximity to it] were the only NNSA Weapons Activities construction projects cut. … The proposed CMRR cut is 90% of the total proposed cut in new NNSA construction. NNSA’s other proposed massive project, the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF), slated to be built at the Y-12 Nuclear Security Site in Tennessee, was not cut at all.”

We have no wish to slight the forces arrayed against the Oak Ridge, Tennessee project. But we can’t help but conclude that, along with current economic climate, the Los Alamos Study Group made the difference in slowing progress of the CMRR.

As Mello writes, the funding cut “can be fairly described as one of the few concrete policy accomplishments of the entire arms control and disarmament community in the United States over the past couple of years.” Never mind your garden-party treaties that are guaranteed not to offend — when the construction of a facility designated for the manufacture of nuclear-weapons components is blocked, that’s disarmament you can taste and feel.

A nuclear “pit,” as regular readers of Focal Points know, is the heart of a nuclear weapon where the chain reaction occurs. The fight to halt the construction of a facility that’s instrumental in their manufacture is finally experiencing some success and the media, including mainstream, has been noticing. By way of background, an excerpt from a recent post of ours about the Chemistry Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility (CMRR-NF ) follows.

To Focal Points’ surprise, the New York Times addressed the facility in an editorial on October 29 titled The Bloated Nuclear Budget, which began:

“Twenty years after the end of the cold war, the United States still has about 2,500 nuclear weapons deployed and 2,600 more as backup. The Obama administration, in an attempt to mollify Congressional Republicans, has also committed to modernizing an already hugely expensive complex of nuclear labs and production facilities. [But the] country does not need to maintain this large an arsenal. … President Obama [should speed up] already negotiated reductions in deployed weapons and committing to further cuts, unilaterally if necessary.”

Including

“Halt construction of the new plutonium storage facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Costs have increased tenfold, and there are serious safety questions about the location — along a fault line and near an active volcano. Savings: $2.9 billion.”

Greg Mello is the executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group, which is leading the charge to block the CMRR-NF, via the courts. The LASG is both appealing the dismissal of its case which sought a new Environmental Impact Statement (under the National Environmental Policy Act) to address those seismic concerns and is filing a second lawsuit to the same end.

Not long after singling out the CMRR-NF for condemnation, the Times provided Mello with space for an op-ed of his own. He points out that the present plutonium facility at Los Alamos

“… which has about twice the space inside as the proposed one, already has a high-capacity manufacturing line that takes up just a third of the building. Why does the nuclear administration need to produce more pits, let alone at a faster rate? Scientists agree that the existing stock of pits will last a century or so without replacement.”

Then the American Conservative ran a story about the CMRR-NF. Kelley Beaucar Vlahos reports.

“It hasn’t been built yet—in fact, the designs aren’t even finished after 10 years. But the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) has been soaking up taxpayer money all the same as the scope of the project has metastasized.

“‘The country doesn’t have money to pour into an unnecessary, giant boondoggle that has grown beyond all original expectations,’ charges Greg Mello, executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group. … There is no doubt that the budget-cutting imperative is clashing with the old way of doing business on Capitol Hill, as pet projects and earmarks come under more scrutiny than ever. … That includes CMRR-NF, which has never been the subject of a public congressional hearing or passionate floor speech—much less a heated debate on cable TV or talk radio—but has been controversial nonetheless.’”

Finally, some good news, as relayed in the latest LASG newsletter.

“Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Judicial District ruled … in favor of the Los Alamos Study Group on a motion by the Department of Justice (DOJ) requesting dismissal of the Study Group’s appeal of a May 2011 decision by a New Mexico federal district court which allowed the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) to continue working toward building [the CMRR-NF].

“The Study Group had claimed, and still claims in this appeal and in a second lawsuit filed in New Mexico federal court, that NNSA and DOE have never written an applicable environmental impact statement (EIS) for the facility … that the agencies involved are violating the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and that the project is proceeding illegally and must be halted while an applicable EIS is written. … In a separate positive ruling yesterday for Study Group in their second NEPA case in New Mexico federal court, the court denied DOJ’s attempt to transfer the new case to the Honorable Judith Herrera, who had ruled against the Study Group in the first case, the case now under appeal.”

Then, on Monday, December 5, the Associated Press addressed the CMRR-NF in an article titled Debate over $6B Los Alamos nuke lab.

“Questions continue to swirl about exactly what kind of nuclear and plutonium research will be done there, whether the lab is really necessary, and — perhaps most important — will it be safe, or could it become New Mexico’s equivalent of Japan’s Fukushima?

“As federal officials prepare the final design plans for the controversial and very expensive lab, increased scrutiny is being placed on what in recent years has been discovered to be a greater potential for a major earthquake along the fault lines that have carved out the stunning gorges, canyons and valleys that surround the premier U.S. nuclear weapons facility in northern New Mexico.”

It’s beginning to look as if the nuclear weapons-industrial complex has overreached with the CMRR-NF. We’ll give Mello the last word.

“NNSA has advanced a ‘new paradigm’ of nuclear weapons management, so far without White House endorsement, which aims at repeated upgrades and replacements to nuclear weapons on an accelerated schedule. If accepted, this ‘new paradigm’ … – which is really just the old Cold War revived – could serve as a potent narrative supporting a new arms race with Russia, a possibility which is never far away. CMRR-NF is a required gateway to that bleak and hopeless world.”

“In these grim economic times, the cost of maintaining and upgrading the United States’ aging nuclear arsenal of 5,000 warheads is certainly a ripe topic for discussion. The U.S. government has never officially disclosed the exact cost, and whether one should include environmental clean-up costs, missile defense and other programs related to nuclear weapons is a legitimate topic of debate.”

But the Obama administration objects to the figure of $700 billion that it ostensibly plans to spend on nuclear weapons over the next decade. The arms control group the Ploughshares Fund arrived at the figure, which has been cited by the media and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.). Kessler writes:

“James Miller, principal deputy undersecretary of defense, told Congress on Nov. 2 that the figure was close to $214 billion over ten years, with $88 billion being spent at the Energy Department, which maintains nuclear weapons, and more than $125 billion spent on delivery systems at the Defense Department.

“I’ve had an opportunity to look at some of the materials that were referenced in the cost estimates just before coming over here and I—without giving this more time than it deserves—suffice it to say there was double counting and some rather curious arithmetic involved,’ Miller said.”

“Without giving this more time than it deserves”? Excuse me, but if, as Kessler writes, the “U.S. government has never officially disclosed the exact cost” — never mind “whether one should include environmental clean-up costs, missile defense and other programs related to nuclear weapons [should be] a legitimate topic of debate,” does Miller really expect disarmament advocates to refrain from trying to divine the figures on their own?

When it comes to “curious arithmetic,” it seems like a case of a kettle trying to find a pot to call black. Furthermore, writes Kessler

“A big unknown question is whether the DOD figure of $125 billion really includes all of the modernization costs, as Miller suggested. … ‘It’s a little like saying it costs me $1,000 a year to operate my car, except that I am not counting the cost of insurance, repairs, registration, taxes, etc.,’ [Stephen Schwartz, editor of the Nonproliferation Review] said. ‘The actual cost is higher, maybe even much higher. But unless the folks at DOD can provide us with a breakout of the costs for each system, it’s impossible to say what’s included and what’s not.’”

As for the Ploughshares Fund figure that Rep. Markey used:

“Schwartz said that he warned Ploughshares and Markey’s office to be careful with these estimates, especially when lumping many things together. ‘Unfortunately. … Ploughshares wanted a large number to make their case for political reasons.’”

Its president, Joseph Cirincione,responded with a full explanation of how he arrived at $700 billion. Then he added:

“Because the government keeps so much of its budget hidden from the public, reasonable people can and will argue over the total costs. … In fact, it is an absolutely essential debate.

“But it needs to be a transparent debate. It is not acceptable for politicians to push their favorite programs with false, incomplete or misleading cost estimates.”

While this author has reservations about the Ploughshares Fund, it’s impossible not to agree with Cirincione. Besides, whatever the numbers, it’s just a pleasant surprise to see a discussion of the nuclear-weapons budget playing out in the media.

Apparently, though, he failed to write them down on the palm of his hand a la Sarah Palin and was only able to remember two. Fifteen minutes later, after referring to his notes, he informed those in attendance that the third federal agency he would target was the Department of Energy. In fact, he calls for its abolition on a regular basis.

Aside from strangling government in general, why is the DOE high on the list of agencies condemned by Republicans? First, it exists to advance energy technology and innovation, which includes wind and solar, of little use to a party dependent on the funding of legacy energy like oil and gas. Also, Republicans can’t resist kicking the dead horse of Solyndra, described by the Washington Post as “the now-shuttered California company [which] had been a poster child of President Obama’s initiative to invest in clean energies and received the administration’s first energy loan of $535 million.”

It’s true, as IPS’s Robert Alvarez informs us, that “since 1990, Energy has remained prominent on the GAO’s list of high-risk federal agencies vulnerable to waste, fraud, and abuse.” But Perry — or his people, to be more exact — seems to have overlooked a key function of the Department of Energy. E.J. Dionne explains at the Washington Post:

“Would [Perry] scrap the department’s 17 national labs, including such world-class facilities as Los Alamos, N.M., Oak Ridge, Tenn.”

Yes, the National Nuclear Security Administration is one of the Department of Energy’s divisions. Its stated mission is to “ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile has been met through its Stockpile Stewardship Program.” Alvarez reminds us that Perry is not the first man who sought to abolish the Department of Energy while president:

“When President Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, one of his first goals was to abolish Energy and eliminate the government’s role in the energy sector. But he was unable to kill the department because neither he nor his supporters could figure out what to do with the country’s sprawling nuclear weapons complex, a key part of Energy’s mandate. Ever since, nuclear weapon stewardship has dominated the department’s agenda.”

Unfortunately my fantasy that shutting down the Department of Energy would deal a serious blow to the U.S. nuclear-weapons program is just that. More likely, the National Nuclear Security Administration would be privatized and wind up like Los Alamos and Lawerence Livermore Laboratory. At the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Hugh Gusterson explains (no link — behind a pay wall):

“Los Alamos National Security (LANS), a consortium headed by the Bechtel Corporation with the University of California as a junior partner, won the contract [to manage Los Alamos] in 2005. A year later, it also won the contract to run the lab at Livermore. To boost profits, Bechtel increased the management fee tenfold, rewarding its senior LANS officials. The budget was static but costs increased, resulting in heavy job losses at the Livermore Laboratory.”

In other words, a privatized nuclear-weapons complex would live on, but with even more mismanagement and waste than when a division of the Department of Energy.

In 2008 a WorldPublicOpinion.org poll revealed that, while 81% of Iranians favored nuclear energy, 58% agreed with the Supreme Leader’s statement, while only 23% supported a nuclear-weapons program. In fact 63% expressed approval that Iran was still party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Presumably, those polled responded truthfully. But, in light of the International Atomic Energy Agency report presenting more evidence that Iran is acquiring the know-how and technology to build nuclear weapons, who — left or right — really believes the Supreme Leader’s avowals?

Are such statements by the Supreme Leader bald-faced lies? Or is he relying on an obscure Islamic doctrinal point to justify lying to the enemy — not to mention justifying killing millions of them?

In 2003, Robert Collier of the San Francisco Chronicle attempted to divine the truth.

“Grand Ayatollah Yusef Saanei, one of the highest-ranking clerics in Iran, said in an interview: ‘There is complete consensus on this issue. It is self-evident in Islam that it is prohibited to have nuclear bombs. It is eternal law, because the basic function of these weapons is to kill innocent people’.”

But

“Some diplomats privately dismiss such statements, pointing to alleged Iranian government support for such organizations as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other groups whose suicide bombings have killed hundreds of innocent civilians. … Asked whether the ayatollahs could simply rip up their fatwa one day and issue a new ruling blessing the development of nuclear weapons, [Fazal Miboudi, a mullah who is professor of political science at Mofid University in Qom] said any reversal of such a high-profile issue would require years of awkward theological maneuvering.”

In fact, though, an explanation may actually exist for how the Supreme Leader could declare that nuclear weapons are forbidden by Islam while green-lighting their development. In June of this year, Tehran held its second international conference on nuclear disarmament. Despite hosting delegates from 40 nations, the United Nations, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it was, for the most part, scoffed at by the West. But, at Asia Times Online, Kaveh Afrasiabi wrote:

“What seems more absurd to many is the simple fact that with the tens of thousands of nuclear warheads still in existence … so little attention has been placed in the West on practical mechanisms to achieve the lofty objective of a ‘world without nuclear weapons’. [The] gathering helped serve a purpose in terms of what [Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Akbar] Salehi has described as cultivating a ‘popular disarmament culture’.”

As you can see, Iran was attempting to put the onus of nonproliferation back on the West for failing to take substantive disarmament measures. Afrasiabi continued.

“… the Tehran conference gave the Iranian hosts an opportunity to throw the limelight on Israel’s clandestine nuclear arsenal, its refusal to join the NPT and its lack of support for a Middle East nuclear weapons-free zone — an idea fully endorsed by Iran. [Also] the Tehran conference was important in further integrating Iran in the global disarmament movement. [Emphasis added.]”

No doubt, Iran and disarmament are two words you never expected to see in the same sentence. Afrasiabi explained.

“Following this line of thought, the outlines of Iran’s ‘borderline’ nuclear policy, which allows Tehran to insert itself in the global ‘nuclear game’ and thus exert pressure on the nuclear haves to move toward disarmament and avoid proliferation activities, can be understood.”

Afrasiabi is justifying (rationalizing) Iran’s flirtation with nuclear-weapons (“‘borderline’ nuclear policy”) as a means to gain “credibility” with the West. Usually, when used in a nuclear-weapons context, the word credibility refers to a perceived need for the West, especially the United States, to initiate substantive disarmament measures to convince states aspiring to nuclear weapons that they don’t need them. Afrasiabi elaborated.

“Without the potential capability as a proto-nuclear power, Iran … will be ignored as totally irrelevant. In other words, the … value, for the sake of disarmament objectives, of Iran’s latent nuclear potential and/or threat has completely bypassed Western pundits who … often reduce Iran’s nuclear ambitions to a mere issue of national security.”

In other words, Afrasiabi is asserting that Iran is developing the capacity to build nuclear weapons in hopes that nuclear-weapons states will view it as a genuine player on the international stage. It can then institute its hitherto hidden agenda: disarmament. In Afrasiabi’s words, Iran will be “able to play an increasingly vocal role in holding those powers back from the flight of responsibility vis-a-vis their NPT obligations to disarm.”

More and more Afrasiabi resembles an Iranian-American version of North Korea mouthpiece Kim Myong Chol, who writes articles like this — North Korea nears age of affluence — for Asia Times Online. In any event, he thinks he’s demonstrated how the Supreme Leader can be pro and con nuclear weapons at the same time.

Meanwhile the leaders of another state are less questionable because of their sanity and rationality than because of a lack of concern for their people that’s comparable to that of Kim Jong-il. Indications are that Burma is in the early stages of a nuclear-weapons program. Roland Watson runs the invaluable website Dictator Watch, devoted, for the most part, to activism on behalf of the people of Burma. In August of last year, he wrote (no link available):

“In June, we published lists of 660 Burma military officers who in 2009 began masters or doctoral programs in Russia at fourteen different technical universities. [Of that class] 111 were directly assigned to the SPDC’s nuclear project. …  (Nuclear, Tunnel, Computer, etc.).  … this is conclusive evidence that the SPDC has a clandestine nuclear program, and that it lied to the International Atomic Energy Agency when it said that it did not.

“We have now received additional hard documentation about the nuclear program: A construction status report, building plan, and maps, of … Thabeikkyin … which is believed to be the center of the overall program. [The documents] describe a facility for upwards of five hundred personnel, but which also envisioned a potential ten-fold expansion.  …  Our initial intel about Thabeikkyin (also from 2006) said that there was a uranium milling facility associated with the operation, and which Jane’s Intelligence has now prospectively identified.  … We can also comment that the use of a secret mountain site for uranium enrichment parallels the actions of both Iran and North Korea.”

Oddly enough, Watson sees benefits to not only discovering the nuclear program early — well, five years on — but to the actual existence of such a program. In fact, in his recent Ten-Year Review of Dictator Watch he explains why it might be good news that Burma has taken its first steps toward a nuclear weapons program. (Emphasis added.)

“We and others had argued for years that the regime’s brutality and its humanitarian consequences constitute an international threat to security and peace, and that the IC [International Community] therefore had an obligation to intervene, including under the United Nation’s recognized Responsibility to Protect. All such arguments were derided by the regime’s Security Council protectors, China and Russia.

“Therefore, it was in a sense a huge break when we learned of the existence of the clandestine nuclear and missile programs. Surely, the International Community would respond to them.”

Unfortunately, learning about the programs wasn’t as helpful as it seemed in not only drawing attention to human rights abuses in Burma but in focusing attention on its nascent nukes. Watson:

“I am certain that Western Intelligence, particularly U.S. Intelligence, knows a lot more as well [as Dictator Watch]. Under the provisions of the 2008 Tom Lantos JADE Act, the U.S. is required to disclose what it knows in the form of a Report on Military and Intelligence Aid.”

But, Watson writes, “I guess I was naïve.” The United States “refused to publish the report. We therefore filed a Freedom of Information Act request, in April 2010, which too has been ignored.”

Why is the United States dragging its feet? Watson again.

“It is ironic, to say the least, that for the lack of a little funding we cannot conclusively prove the existence of a major threat to world security. Of course, from the perspective of the West, this is a good thing. If we do ever get the goods on Burma’s nuclear ambitions, a real smoking gun, it will be forced to respond.”

Among other things, if the United States pressured Burma it would be at odd with India and China, both of which trade with Burma. Once again, a nascent nuclear-weapons program is used as an implement with which to bludgeon states when it serves our purpose such as Iran. But when dealing with it puts the United States at odds with states that it doesn’t wish to alienate (further, in the case of China), it’s all too willing to turn a blind eye to its nuclear program. Burma no doubt banks on that.

At the Atlantic, Mira Rapp-Hooper and Kenneth N. Waltz weighed in on this.

“No doubt understanding that his regime and his own survival are under constant threat, Kim [Jong-il] has been quite unwilling to disarm. The last two decades have provided him with numerous cautionary tales of dictatorships defeated — the Iraqi army was trounce-ed in 1991, NATO triumphed over Milosevic in 1999, and the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. And just this March, as NATO operations in Libya began, a North Korean spokesperson announced the lesson that Kim’s regime had learned: ‘It has been shown to the corners of the earth that Libya’s giving up its nuclear arms. … was used as an invasion tactic to disarm the country.’ … The Dear Leader has probably learned through careful observation that the only true security guarantee for a fragile autocracy … may be a nuclear arsenal.”

Eli Jacobs, a research intern for the Project on Nuclear Issues of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has the temerity to respond to Rapp-Hooper and Waltz. Bear in mind that the elderly Waltz actually founded a school of international relations who has written extensively on nuclear weapons (to which he’s not necessarily opposed). For example, he’s written:

“The like­lihood of war decreases as deterrent and defensive capabilities increase. Nuclear weapons, responsibly used, make wars hard to start. Nations that have nuclear weapons have strong incentives to use them responsibly. These statements hold for small as for big nuclear powers. Because they do, the measured spread of nuclear weapons is more to be welcomed than feared. [Emphasis added.]”

Just as long as it’s measured! According to Jacobs, though, Kim Jong-il doesn’t even need that excuse to keep nuclear weapons.

“North Korea was not going to give up its nuclear weapons in any case. The conclusion that a nuclear capability bolsters the regime’s security seems to be a long-term guiding principle of Kim Jong-il’s security policy. Further, forsaking nuclear weapons now will jeopardize the regime’s attempts to bolster the military credentials of Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il’s son and successor.”

But the crux of Jacobs’s argument though is that nuclear weapons are not needed to deter regime change. In fact

“… conventional forces alone can often do the trick. For example, Iran’s geography and North Korea’s massive army would, combined with other non-nuclear factors, likely deter regime change pursued by military means.

“Third, [the] repressive regimes of Hussein and Qaddafi were, above all, weak. Indeed, Kaddafi did not trade away a military capability anywhere near that currently possessed by the DPRK.”

Besides, he adds, “a deliverable Libyan nuke was years away.” Meanwhile, I recently wrote:

“If Kim is taking the wrong lesson from this, so are we in being selective about which states we condemn for their nuclear proliferation. It’s as if they’re subject to an unwritten sanity or rationality index. Naturally, no U.S. allies that have developed nuclear weapons since the nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty came into force, such as Israel or India, score low on that index, however imaginary. Pakistan’s rating, however, as it fails to pursue Islamic militants and with concerns arising about the security of its nuclear weapons program, is falling at a steady rate. Of course, North Korea, Iran, and Syria occupy the bottom of the index.”

In the end, the power (or will) of the United States to prevent a despot from assuming control of a small nation is limited. But it can still demonstrate, as the NPT calls for, substantive disarmament leadership. Though this may not inspire the new ruler to refrain from proliferating, it will lower the national-security stakes for him.

This includes between $1.7 billion and $3.9 billion for each of the five individual bomb models. But the “figures do not include almost $11 billion in additional NNSA expenses simply to maintain the stockpile, outside of the LEP programs. This brings total spending on nuclear warheads over the next twenty years to $27 billion.”

In tandem with the words “significantly modify,” the authors have noticed an innovation in cataloging the bombs that indicates mission creep on the part of the NNSA away from just maintaining the stockpile.

“For each weapon type, different variants are designated by a … “Mod” number … e.g., B61-7 is the “B61 Mod 7.” Only significant changes would result in a new Mod number. … This seems to indicate that all LEPs will now produce warheads with new Mod numbers, apparently in anticipation of significant modifications. [Emphasis added -- RW.]”

Where does the White House stand on this?

“Up to a point, this effort enjoys widespread congressional and White House support. … However, NNSA’s enthusiasm for extensively modifying all warheads may be going beyond what Congress and the Obama administration as a whole will support. … In an example of rising concerns, [a GAO] report on the B61 LEP raised red flags about the NNSA’s proposed changes to the bomb. The report [noted that the B61 LEP] was the first ever that sought to simultaneously refurbish multiple components, enhance safety and surety, and make other design changes. . . [Expressing its concern, a] Senate appropriations committee. … report notes that ‘NNSA plans to incorporate untried technologies and design features to improve the safety and security of the nuclear stockpile’ (emphasis added [by authors]).”

“While some enhancements may be warranted,” write the authors, “the justification for all these new features appears to be based on an open-ended development of new technologies for the incorporation of enhanced surety features into warheads independent of any threat scenario. This pursuit of a wide range of surety improvements,” in turn, “justifies the need for substantial warhead modifications and additional production and simulation capabilities.” In fact, “warhead modification is now a central goal of the stockpile stewardship management program.”

In other words, “Modification—not just maintenance—of the enduring stockpile has become a core objective.” The authors conclude:

“One gets the sense that, since Congress stopped the Reliable Replacement Warhead, NNSA has seized on safety and security as the sure-fire cause to allow major warhead modifications and win significant funding.”

“The lesson is elementary. Eight years ago, Libya agreed to dismantle its infant nuclear program. … Would NATO have launched a bombing campaign against Libya if [it] had possessed nuclear weapons?”

The United States set a precedent when it attacked Iraq in 2003. The door had been shut on Iraq’s attempts to develop nuclear weapons by the UN inspections regime known as UNSCOM (United Nations Special Commission). Which, of course, didn’t prevent George W. Bush’s administration from propping up the corpse of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program to justify its invasion.

Thus, adding insult to injury, not only did the U.S. attack a country without nuclear weapons, it conjured up the fiction that Iraq had renewed its program. This constituted a double blow to nonproliferation. What’s the point of a state disarming if it’s not only subjecting itself to attack, but leaving itself vulnerable to the possibility that a nuclear-weapons state might make the claim that, in fact, it hasn’t disarmed?

Of course, if Saddam Hussein, in the interests of regional security as he saw it, hadn’t tried to keep up the pretense that Iraq still possessed a nuclear weapons program, the accusations about its program might never have been mounted. What’s worrisome today is that Iran’s contentiousness makes it ripe for exactly that sort of double crossing.

More from Sanati:

“Qaddafi’s forceful downfall will make acquiring nuclear weapons all the more justifiable to states that feel threatened by outsiders. In turn, that will erode the vision of nonproliferation that held such promise in the post-cold-war era.”

Furthermore, while Iraq and Libya were attacked, “troublesome nuclear-armed states such as North Korea and Pakistan have not been attacked since they acquired the bomb. They’ve also garnered multilayered benefits from the international community.” In other words, Sanati eloquently writes:

“The threat or reality of military intervention against nonnuclear states … at times done to dissuade them from acquiring nuclear capability, can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

By which he means that those states might seek to develop nuclear weapons. In fact, the United States would be better served if it paid more than lip service to the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty’s Article VI, which reads: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament.”

Nuclear-weapons advocates sometimes claim that Article VI is lip service itself. They maintain that Article VI does not actually require states party (aka signatories) to negotiate said “treaty on general and complete disarmament” into actual existence. They’re only required “to negotiate in good faith” to that eventual end. That’s despite an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice in 1996 which maintained: “There exists an obligation to … bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament.”

In any event, non-nuclear-weapon states, especially those that belong to NAM (the Non-Aligned Movement) delight in throwing Article VI back in the faces of the nuclear weapons states. Failure on the part of nuclear-weapon states to take substantive disarmament measures, they claim, only allows states that aspire to nuclear weapons to justify their needs as they see them. But nuclear-weapons advocates believe that western leadership on disarmament would not only do nothing to discourage states that aspire to nuclear weapons but might even encourage them. Nevertheless, even though it might not produce immediate results, there’s really nothing for it but to deprive states that aspire to nuclear weapons of justification.

For its part, though, the United States will probably stick to the status quo. A token treaty like New START while it commits $85 billion to its nuclear weapons program over the next decade. Continuing to contain Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programs with sanctions and incentives respectively.

Furthermore, the United States may comfort itself with the knowledge that the state of surveillance today makes it possible to detect nuclear programs in their infancy and cut them off at the root. How, though, is another matter. While Israel got away with its 2007 airstrike on an alleged undeclared reactor in Syria, just as it did in 1981 with Iraq’s Osirak reactor, the odds of arriving at an international consensus on an attack on, say, Burma, are slim to none.

As long as the United States continues to cultivate a thriving nuclear-weapons program, states that aspire to nuclear weapons — whether or not the effect of our disarmament on them is salutary or not — can continue to use ours to justify growing them in their own defense garden.